“Hey you! Be in my group! Now you’re in my group you can see how bad ass of a group mod I am! I even added a group chat to our little Facebook Community!”

You gotta love the vigilance of Facebook Group/Page recruiters and moderators but there’s more to love than this human species… or even internet bot species. There are the applications that are meant to enhance these communities. One for example, an application named “Group Chat” which offers a chat forum but also seems to spam the shit out of your friends list that it’s not supposed to have any access, what-so-ever, too. For example …

None of these people were in the group this app had been added to.

It sent out many notifications. These two screen shots are just two examples out of a dozen.

And it doesn’t look like Facebook did anything to discipline the app makers – as the app is still around even after a year of complaints.

Here’s your Friday’s win, we got each other sick this last week and we’re all basically miserable and on our deathbeds. Win for Facebook! Hilarious for you! Fail for us. I drew the short straw and had to share this lulz but now I’m going back to lay down. =|

German, British and Canadian Governments are monitoring Facebook’s assault of the general definition of privacy. Meanwhile the shameless free market fundamentalists who’ve wormed themselves into the American Government, in great numbers, are giving “favors” and trading players…

The minister, Ilse Aigner, first raised concerns about Facebook two months ago, urging the network to upgrade its privacy settings.

Last week, in response to a backlash among users, Facebook announced that it was simplifying its privacy controls and applying them retroactively, so users can protect the status updates and photos they posted in the past.

Those changes were “a first step in the right direction, but I still have my doubts as to whether these improvements will really bring a true turning point,” Aigner said after meeting Richard Allan, Facebook’s director of European public policy.

Aigner said the meeting “unfortunately confirmed my skepticism.”

She said she plans to leave the network, but will remain in contact with Facebook managers and “will not rest until data protection is improved decisively.”

The changes so far aren’t enough “to protect the privacy of users and to comply with our German law, which has higher standards than elsewhere in the world and America,” Aigner added.

She complained that the network’s data protection system remains too complicated and geared toward opting out of sharing information rather than opting in.

Aigner has also harshly criticized Google Inc. for failing to respect German data protection regulations through its Street View mapping program.

Thank you Tracy. This thing has made it’s way around teh interwebs over the last year. We can’t think of anything more hilarious or epic really to post for a “Friday For The Win” post. Enter the LOVE CAVE! Please enjoy your ride of shame…﻿

Facebook announced Thursday the hire of Marne Levine, as its first-ever Vice President of Global Public Policy. She’ll start at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based tech company next month but will remain based in Washington, D.C. Currently, she serves as chief of staff for the White House National Economic Counsel; previously, following a background in the online payments space, she worked in the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Legislative Affairs and Public Liaison, and was chief of staff to former Treasury head Larry Summers when he was president of Harvard University.

“I’m excited that Marne is joining my team as Vice President, Global Public Policy,” a statement from Facebook vice president of communications Elliot Schrage read. “With over 70 percent of our users living outside the United States, her unique mix of government and Internet industry experience will be invaluable to help Facebook address some of the most interesting questions at the intersection of technology and public policy.”

As Facebook draws ever closer to the half-billion-member milestone, the company increasingly finds itself dealing with international governments and legislative bodies both inside and outside of the U.S. Part of Levine’s job will be to help build public policy teams in Asia, Europe, and the Americas; Facebook’s existing D.C. branch head, Tim Sparapani, will continue to manage the company’s relationship with the U.S. government.

Part of Levine’s background–connections to Harvard University, the Treasury Department, and Larry Summers–sounds a whole lot like that of another Facebook executive, chief operating officer and former Google sales exec Sheryl Sandberg, who was Summers’ chief of staff when he was at the Treasury Department. Sandberg was one of Facebook’s first prominent employees to come from a government background rather than Silicon Valley.

Facebook’s existing D.C. connections also run deep thanks to Donald Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Company, who serves on Facebook’s board of directors. The Washington Post was also the outlet for an op-ed penned by CEO Mark Zuckerberg after the company’s most recent privacy controversy, indicating Facebook’s desire to further permeate the close-knit world of D.C. influence and dealmaking.

Who doesn’t get friend requests from weirdos? I know I do. I tend to ignore them when Facebook respects my wish enough to give me that right to ignore them. There’ve been a few times though that Facebook has been like, “Oh you can’t ignore them. Sorry but no.”

Honestly. The thing with the Pedro… Pablo… whatever – dude is, I think the request got hung up in a server process. Somehow the server, instead of quantifying my input to ignore and block this person, just forgot wtf it was supposed to do and shuffled ol’ Pablo whatever off into the la-la land of the “Hanging Process.”